


Survivors

by Wind_Ryder



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Holocaust, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prisoner of War, Survivors, Volary, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Steve rescues Bucky and joins the war effort full time, he meets two different kinds of survivors. The ones who were POWs and ready to fight back as soon as they were saved, and the ones that were exhausted and broken down after years of abuse at the hands of the Nazis. </p><p>Surviving comes in all different forms of life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survivors

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unbeta'd work of fiction designed to highlight the horrors of the War that Steve and Bucky fought through. WWII wasn't all fun and games, it was a tragedy for thousands of people. And those who survived were not necessarily all okay in the end.

The first time Steve Rogers sees what the war was doing to people he was raiding HYDRA. He unlocked the cells of various prisoners of war, and he watched as they rallied their not inconsiderable strength against their captors. It had been glorious. Even Bucky, beaten and battered on a HYDRA operating table, had managed to walk by Steve’s side all the way back to safety.

 

Steve had smiled, then, thinking about how well they had done and how things were going to only get better from here on out. He had looked to Bucky and announced that they were going to win this war. At the time, his oldest friend hadn’t done anything other than smile faintly, and nod his head.

 

Bucky hadn’t said anything, in truth. After his rescue he’d been quieter and less opinionated. Steve had been so busy he hadn’t really noticed the change in his friend. He didn’t get a chance to see him often enough as it was. It was only when he heard that Bucky hadn’t been cleared to return to duty did he approach him.

 

“What happened?” Steve asked, holding up Bucky’s paperwork incredulously.

 

“Looks like I’m out, Cap.” Bucky told him with a shrug.

 

“How? What went wrong? Are you all right?” Steve felt his stomach clench at the thought of not realizing something was wrong. Bucky just looked up at him with a blank face, and shrugged.

 

“Nurse didn’t like me I guess.” He replied. “I didn’t much like her either.”

 

“You? Not liking a hot nurse?” Steve asked candidly. Bucky shrugged. “You still want to fight the war?” He asked, and Bucky hesitated.

 

“Till the end of the line.” Bucky murmured. “As long as the paperwork allows.”

 

“I can make it allow.” Steve told him confidently. Bucky smiled faintly and nodded his head.

 

Less than a week later, the Howling Commandos were back on the battlefield. Captain Rogers led the attack with Bucky at his side, and it felt _good_ going up against the evils of the world. Their unit never failed. Steve found himself growing more and more proud of the men under his command, encouraging them to push their limits as they charged from one attack to the next.

 

With each successful mission they celebrated with another round of beans and a huddle around a small fire. They laughed and joked, occasionally ribbing one another as they pat each other on the back in pride.

 

Their good moods only faded at night. Steve woke up to the sounds of the Commandos whispering in the dark. They’d flail in their sleep, reach for their guns before they ascertained their threats, lash out if caught unaware. Bucky, in the throws of a nightmare not easily broken, would scream wordlessly until his voice broke. His spine would arch off the ground, arms and legs pinned to his sides like they had been back in Zola’s lab. One of the others sometimes slipped a belt through his teeth so he didn’t pop a tooth as he ground down his cries.

 

Steve was the only one who could manage to wake him up. Even then, Bucky was useless for the rest of the night. He’d refuse to go back to sleep, insisting on going on patrol until his body failed him and he had to consent to closing his eyes one more time. Steve stayed by him, and promised him that things were going to get better. They were going to win this war. They were going to go home.

 

“I want to go home.” Bucky admitted one night, dark circles under his eyes as he shivered into his jacket. It had been a brutal winter so far. Things were turning round, but it was taking far too long to get there.

 

“We’ll go home soon.” Steve swore. “The war’s almost over.”

 

One more HYDRA base knocked off the map.

 

One more victory around the fire. 

 

In late April they got word of a group of civilians on a forced march. Steve tracked their progress on a map, and made a guess as to where they were likely headed. Volary. “We’ll need support units to help the civilians move on to safety, equipment and medical supplies as well.” He instructed as he started drafting the battle plan.

 

“Why are we helping them?” Bucky asked him quietly.

 

“They’re civilians, Buck. They don’t deserve to be caught up in this.”

 

“They’re not HYDRA.”

 

“You didn’t enlist to fight HYDRA, you did it to help these people.” Steve reminded him.

 

“Yeah…I know. But _you_ did enlist for HYDRA.” Bucky replied. “The Commandos has always been about that goal. Why do this now?”

 

“Because we’re going to save their lives, Bucky.” Steve replied slowly. “You understand that, don’t you?”

 

“Sure. Of course. Let’s go.” That night, Bucky thrashed in his sleep, whispering words in broken German as he begged for help he’d never get.

 

In the morning, several of the standard soldiers they’d arranged to travel with on this mission complained about the noise in the night. Bucky clenched his jaw, but otherwise didn’t outwardly react as more and more of them spoke out about the unnatural cries of a _baby girl_ on the battlefield.

 

Morita stopped Steve before he could say anything to the soldiers. “It will only make it worse.” Morita told him with a shake of the head. “He will not thank you for this.” Steve nodded in understanding, but still looked out towards his best friend. He wondered if he’d made a mistake pushing for Bucky’s return to service.

 

The troops moved out. It was a slow pace across the country, though they met no resistance as they approached Volary. Bucky hung back, taking up various vantage points and scouting ahead. Despite the worry that Steve had in letting him be off on his own, Bucky excelled at it. His reports and actions were always precise. There wasn’t a better lookout in their unit.

 

A small scuffle was dealt with quickly, what few German soldiers that dared to fight back were quickly defeated. Steve frowned as he looked around for the civilians they’d heard about. The ones that were in need of medicine and aid. One of the younger soldiers they’d brought with them slowly approached a building, and then Steve saw them for the first time.

 

It started with a woman. At first Steve thought she must have been an elderly woman. Her hair was white, her body frail. It took him a few moments longer to realize that she wasn’t elderly. She was young. Young and dying. Her body looked like flesh wrapped around bone. There was nothing else. Her eyes were sunken, her limbs protruding. She was like an animated corpse wearing clothes that were closer to rags. She was covered in filth, and had she been the only one – perhaps Steve’s heart wouldn’t have broken so soundly.

 

There were dozens of them, people who looked less than human. They were so alien, foreign and weak, that Steve felt sick rising up in his throat. He felt his hands start to shake at his sides, and his head began to ache as he tried to process what he was seeing.

 

The soldiers they’d brought with them were horrified. They pulled off their jackets, offered their rations to these starving persons. Gabe asked how many of them there used to be. Hundreds more. Thousands more. The Germans had made a camp to kill them all, and what they hadn’t been able to kill efficiently, they’d murdered through the walk.

 

“Don’t give them the food.” Bucky said suddenly, voice too loud and hinging a bit on the side of hysteria.

 

“Buck-”

 

“It’ll make them sick! They’ll _die!_ Don’t give them that food!” The soldiers were looking at him incredulously, refusing to listen as they passed over more and more of their rations. The survivors were desperate to eat, and Steve struggled to grasp which was the better option.

 

“Bucky…they’re starving.”

 

“They’ve been starving for too long.” Bucky told him. “If they eat now, like that…they’ll be killed. Please…please make them stop.”

 

“He’s right, Steve.” Morita said quietly. “Just wait for the medics.”

 

The soldiers were looking at him for the final call, and Steve felt even more sick than before. “Stop. Just until we know what’s going on.” He ordered. “Get a fire started, and only give small sips of water. If anyone has field medic experiences – use it.”

 

Everyone moved out. They did what they could, struggling to work their way through the enormity of what had transpired. These civilians weren’t just civilians. They were survivors, all of them were the last survivors of labor camps that had long since been evacuated or destroyed.

 

When the final numbers came in, Steve wished he could feel something more than empty. There were one hundred and twenty women. According to one report- their walk had started with four thousand. By the end of the night, those precious few numbers had started to falter. When the medics finally arrived, Bucky was right: the food and overdrinking had caused their bodies to go into shock. They had started to die.

 

Steve found Bucky watching the perimeter of their group, eyeing the horizon for soldiers that would likely never come. He felt wrong even speaking to him. After the weight of the day, Steve couldn’t bring himself to feel anything more than exhausted. He’d fought HYDRA, he’d battled armies, he’d killed people, and yet the sight of those women had been enough to wrench his heart in his chest and leave him feeling gouged and hollow.

 

“Bucky?” He asked, walking to his oldest friend.

 

He wasn’t surprised by the tear tracks on Bucky’s face, nor by the way that Bucky was keeping his back to the people they were caring for. He couldn’t block out the sounds, but he could at least stop watching their skeletal bodies flicker like ghosts in the firelight.

 

“When’s the war going to be over?” Bucky asked quietly.

 

“Soon.” Steve replied, like he always did.

 

“I wanted to go home.” Bucky murmured.

 

“Wanted?”

 

“They wanted to go home too.” Bucky rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. He smeared dirt down his face, but he didn’t seem to care or notice.

 

“Bucky…they-”

 

“They wanted to go home too, but their home sent them to this…this _hell_. Why, why should I feel like this?” Bucky asked, turning to look at Steve furiously. “Why should I _deserve_ to feel like this when _they_ …they lost everything they had. They lost their families, their homes, their lives, their-they can’t even eat!”

 

“People hurt for different reasons. What you went thought was-”

 

“Nothing compared to them.” Bucky replied. “I was…” Bucky closed his mouth and looked away.

 

“You were…?” Steve prompted.

 

“I was strapped to a table, beaten, starved, drugged…and it was only for a few weeks. They’ve spent years of their lives like this.”

 

“We can’t change the past, Buck. But we can fight to keep things like this from ever happening again.” Steve said softly. He reached out and gave Bucky’s shoulder a squeeze.

 

“Yes.” Bucky replied, eyes narrowing as he nodded towards him in one sharp movement. “Yes we can.”

 

When the screams filled the night, this time it wasn’t Bucky, and this time: the soldiers didn’t complain. They were all irrevocably changed when the extraction team finally arrived to help the survivors to a secure facility to heal at. None of them would ever forget.

 

It wasn’t long after that before they heard word of Zola travelling by train. Bucky was the first one to get his things to head out, and Captain America was right behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> The death march to Volary really did happen. Noted survivors include Gerta Weissmann Klein, who was the 21 year old woman that Steve first sees when she steps out of the door. The young soldier who met her would eventually become her husband. She was liberated in May, 1945 along with the other 119 survivors of the march. 
> 
> You can read more about Gerta's story in her autobiography: "All but My Life," or watch it in the short film: "One Survivor Remains." She is still alive today, at 80 years old. Though her husband and liberator, Kurt Klein, died in 2002. 
> 
> __________________________________
> 
> For more information on stories, history, updates, and more follow me on tumblr: http://falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com


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